>> you're watching wbal-tv 11, live, local, late-breaking, this is 11 news at 6:00 p.m. >> heavy rain and strong winds from hurricane sandy are hammering the north carolina coastline. conditions are expected to get worse overnight. sandy is making her presence felt along the eastern seaboard tonight. >> forecasters warn the outer bands of this storm are just a

preview of the hurricane's strength. we have team coverage tonight as the storm approaches the mid-atlantic region. sarah sampson is in ocean city tonight, where residents could be on the front line of the storm. george is in the low-lying areas of fell's point as people are gathering sandbags. but let's go to our meteorologist who is tracking the storm. john, what's the latest? >> well, sandy is a hurricane, marginal, category one, with 75-mile-an-hour winds, a little better than 300 miles away from cape hatteras. here's what the weather looks like for us. we had the cold front to the west and all that moisture coming up from the south from sandy. but it's kind of held down to the extreme southeast virginia, the mouth of the chesapeake bay. we've had a very nice afternoon this afternoon so far. let's switch over to our main computer and here are the various tracks. we still got a variety of solutions, but most of them converge on new jersey. i want to kind of focus now,

instead of having two or three of these little spinning symbols about where various models talk, the three main models, the european, the g.f.s. and the nam are coming in at the same place, central or northern new jersey, and in the predawn hours on tuesday, all right? and the strongest weather will be before the makes landfall. the storm will be coming in from the east, too, not from the south, but from the east. that looks like we're really beginning to focus now on what's going to happen and where that track is. we're getting awfully close. right now we want to check in with george, who joins us from fell's point live with how people there are getting ready to face the storm. george? >> hi, there, john. the baltimore city community is coming together literally at the sandbox here preparing for the flooding that sandy will probably bring to low-lying areas like fells point. if you're a city residents you have to show i.d. to prove so.

you get up to six bags to fill up with sand, 18 bags if you're a business, and there, of course, has been a steady stream of people coming to the three sand pile locations in fell's point that are serving all of baltimore city. if we pan to the left here a little bit we can see that those sandbags are already being put to use at what appears to be a business here in fells point. they've stacked those up at the doorways there and secured them with duck tape and put a tarp, if you will, on the door, because places like this are right near the pier, so they could get hit pretty bad. now speaking of the sand, this will be here until 9:00 tonight. also be available tomorrow for residents. mema will activate its level one emergency evacuation tomorrow, and earlier a state of emergency was declared for the city. george, wbal-tv 11 news. >> george, thank you. b.g.e. says it is planning for

the potential of several hundred thousand power outages beginning as early as tomorrow morning. how do you prepare for a massive storm like this? >> you just continue to monitor the weather, but at the same time you get all the resources you can. and we've been pretty successful. we put the call out for 2,000 utility workers from out of state. we have them moving to us, about 1,300, from all sorts of places, including new mexico, oklahoma, louisiana, all over the place. and then you prepare all of your logistics and make sure you're ready to go. the key is to have your folks here on the grounds ready to go when the storm hits. >> with that army on the ground, everybody wants to know, even before they lose power, how long they should expect to be without power. >> this is going to be a long one. the challenge is a long duration of wind over the territory. we're going to have the storm coming in monday into tuesday. if the winds are above 35 to 40

miles an hour, our bucket trucks are ineffective. it's not safe. >> when you say a long one, are you talking about a week's time? >> i would say we're going to have an extended duration of outages. i cannot imagine if we get several thousands of outages, they won't extend into next weekend, but we'll have to see what hits us. this storm can change on a dime, as we've seen. >> rob gould, probably the last night you'll get sleep for a while. >> it's going to be a long one. >> ocean city, do you want to update us? >> ocean city could be hard-hit by sandy. officials haven't asked folks to he vamyailt, but they are asking residents -- evacuate yet, but they are asking residents to prepare for the worst. >> public safety officials say they want everyone to take this storm seriously and to take the proper precautions before the weather starts getting bad. >> we still have trouble with the windows when the wind and the water blows like that. so we're here to board it up and rest in peace tonight,

instead of being worried. >> exactly the attitude emergency services officials here in ocean city want to hear. >> take some personal responsibility and get prepared for this storm. take care of their property, see that they have their plan in place, that they're ready to do what they need to do for their own self-protection. >> she's had this beach cottage in her family since the 1950's. that means one thing. >> oh, yeah, i'm getting out of here. i'm going back home. >> for those residents who are planning to stay, officials say stock up. have at least a three-day supply of food and water and plenty of batteries. >> we want people to pay close attention. we don't want complacency at all. we'll survive this one as long as everybody works together with us to do so. >> two of the biggest concerns here -- flooding and power outages. >> our emergency services may be overwhelmed over a period of time if this is a long event, so we want everybody to be on the same page and be ready for anything. >> fryer crews are making an

effort -- fire crews are making an effort to be as prepared as possible, gathering life vests and wading boots, in case water levels get as high as expected. she says her preparations are done, and now all that's left to do is soak in a little sun on the board walk before the storm hits. >> and i hope i have a place when i come back and it's not full of water. so i want to stay, but my daughter wants me to leave. i love storms. i'm a nut. >> officials say everyone should take the proper precautions to prepare for the storm and, of course, be smart during it. reporting from ocean city, i'm sarah sampson, wbal-tv 11 news. >> and be sure and track hurricane sandy's movements on our interactive radar. see satellite images and follow storm updates on livewire. see how to prepare for power outages, that's all on wbaltv.com and our mobile app. >> at this point it is unclear why this is happening, but early voting in some areas

today meant massive lines and waits as long as five hours in some places. was it the threat of sandy, the image of a u.s. president voting early? we don't know. what we do know is that this was the scene at the early-voting center in ran dalstown. as you can see the line extended around the center as people waited for hours on this first day of early voting. things were just as hectic in the early voting center in southwest baltimore. very long lines are anticipated tomorrow, too, where you can vote early at 46 locations across the state. one election official is quoted as saying it is the voter's equivalent of stocking up at the grocery store before the storm hits. >> it's such a wonderful thing for people to be able to come out on a saturday and be able to vote. a lot of people are working all week and now they have an opportunity to avoid the rush, and sometimes inconvenience of election day, to be able to vote at their convenience.

>> ok. now despite some rumors, the polls will be open until 8:00 tonight and 10:00 a.m. through 8:00 p.m. through november 1, except tomorrow, when they will be open from noon to 6:00 p.m. find the early voting centers on our website, wbaltv.com, and with the uncertainties surrounding hurricane sandy, the governor's office says it will determine if changes to the early-voting schedule are necessary to protect the public. >> meanwhile, president obama and mitt romney continued on the campaign trail today as hurricane sandy heads for the united states. with just 10 days to go until election day, the president greeted supporters in new hampshire today, where he took a swipe at governor romney's promises of big change, saying he's offering a rerun of past g.o.p. poll sills. the obama camp has yet to cancel any stops because of the hurricane, but the president's team says they are keeping a close eye on sandy, just in case the president has to respond to disaster areas. and for mitt romney, well, he joined florida senator marco rubio in pensacola.

romney expressed confidence that he'll soon be occupying the white house, telling the crowd of 10,000, "we're going to win this." >> very interesting. all right. back to sandy, which has been the talk for the last couple of days. i tried to vote early today in towson and the same thing, people are trying to get a jump on the storm. >> i ran into people in the parking lot in the store today and they're working on getting everything set up and prepared. i took an awning down because i didn't want it up there in the wind. here's the view from ocean city. the waves are picking up. a high-wind watch goes into effect tomorrow night. flood watch as well. we'll be talking about sandy, what else, coming up.

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>> officials in harvard counties are trying to figure out what sparked a fire that killed a 5-year-old boy.

the fire started at about 6:30 last night on charlestown drive. two other family members were home at the time but they magged to escape. it's unclear if the boy died from smoke inhalation, burns, or a combination of both. >> a man is dead tonight after an accident between an s.u.v. and a motorcycle. we're told the motorcycle was traveling east on shawan road near beaver dam road just before 8:00 this morning. investigators say the driver lost control, crossed the center line and collided head on with the toyota forerunner. the driver of the moik died at the scene and the driver of the toyota is at shock trauma. >> while the big picture shows a huge storm in sandy, tropical storm-force winds extend 500 miles out from the center. that's almost unheard of. doesn't happen very often. we'll talk about this big and dangerous storm.

>> all hurricane coverage seems to start here in kill devil hills, ncaa. this is a live look at how things are working their way to kill devil hills. we're expecting some squally weather down there, but a whole different scenario here on the east coast. >> down around cape hatteras the storm is going to pass by offshore. it's coming onshore up here. so a totally different story. usually they're the ones that catch it, not us. >> so when are we going to start feeling this? >> tomorrow night, really, the rain will start. tomorrow the rain starts. we might even get some showers

tonight. but tomorrow night things will become more intense. monday ought to be an interesting day, especially in the afternoon and evening just before the storm comes in and makes landfall. right now all the rains are down to the south. actually, we had a very nice day today. temperatures got up near 70 degrees. right now it's 65 at b.w.i. marshall, 68 downtown at the science center. we also see in addition to the rain coming up from the south all that tropical moisture. we see the rains out associated with that cool front out in western pennsylvania and west virginia. now, this may eventually, once the storm matures, starts coming in and everything else, there's cold air back there. this may be snow by tuesday and not rain, all right? so this is why really it's sandy and it was a hurricane, or is now, but when it comes in here it's going to be a nor'easter, and they do other things. let's take a look at the current temperatures outside right now. a mild day, 66 at annapolis, 63

easton. also on the boardwalk on the ocean city, chestertown 67, westminster and parkton, 63. 64 at frederick and in the low to mid 50's in far western maryland. shades of blue out here. 40's are beginning to filter in. they're kind of sitting out there parked and waiting, so to speak, with that cool front, which really has stalled out right now. i mean, they're kind of battling, these guys, this storm here. the first elements of this storm coming in. there's the stationary front, an area of low pressure kicking up rain and there's the hurricane itself. we're not seeing all the rain with this. a lot of the rain is out of the range of the radars at this stage of the game. but it's a huge storm. over 500 miles out. tropical storm-force winds are being measured on this storm. it's going to take a path that kind of goes away from us and then comes back at us. this storm won't be coming from the south, it will be coming ultimately from the east. there's very cold air behind the front. it got no better than the 40's

and 30's in some cases in the central and northern plains. so that little bit of energy, too, is adding and complicating the situation with the storm. here's what's going on now. they expect the storm to be hurricane force till it starts making the turn to come toward the mid-atlantic region. loses its tropical characteristics sometime late monday into early tuesday, and the storm will be crossing probably somewhere in the delmarva over new jersey and then beginning to move up into pennsylvania as it pulls away from us. so our forecast tonight, still fairly decent. we might pick up a shower, cloudy skies. 50 to 55 the low, and tomorrow we'll only be in the 50's. so temperatures stay pretty steady. the rain and wind starts to pick up especially toward evening and periods of rain on and off again. insta-weather futurecast shows the storm coming in, and by sunday evening we start to pick up the heavy rain bands and it looks like landfall is going to be sometime late monday or

early tuesday morning in the pre-dawn hours. here's that seven-day forecast. only in the 50's saturday and sunday, and by monday into tuesday we have rain chances coming into the picture, and that's when the most intense rain will be. >> 100%, you almost never see that, john. back to the game in a short week. gilman battles another rival, bus the depleted terps. mayor: casino owners in west virginia are spending millions against question seven. that upsets me. and that upsets jonathan ogden. you don't want to upset jonathan ogden. ogden: no you don't. mayor: question seven means thousands of jobs and millions for our schools. but these west virginia casinos want to keep it all for themselves. we're not happy about that. ogden: no we aren't. mayor: so join us and vote for question seven.

and west virginia, don't make me send jonathan ogden over there. mayor: vote for question seven. ogden: for baltimore. with over 200 varieties, keurig makes brewing a delicious cup of coffee simple. how does it brew such great coffee? well... inside the brewer are these green fields of coffee, and if you travel up this mountain, there's this huge coffee grinder. and then the coffee lands in this cup and water rushes through. actually, i just press this button. brew what you love, simply. keurig.

>> from the sportsner, this is 11 sports. >> randy he had sell's season of promise. the terps have twice as many wins as 2011. hangs in the balance after a host of injuries. down to their fourth-string quarterback. the first start today at boston college for him. here are the backup

quarterbacks. petty, a freshman linebacker, and mcmahon, a freshman tight end. third quarter, give rowe credit, working on a rally for a wide open nigel king, lovely pitch and catch. b.c. up, though 13-67. the terps took the lead. kids won't quit. setting up shop in the end zone. he is a superb freshman. 66 yard. terps take the lead 17-13. but a hard breaking finish for maryland on tap. chase reading, jonathan coleman. they didn't cover him. absolutely all alone, a 14-yard score. the terps fall by a heartbreaking score of 20-17. the tigers taking on villanova at the wildcats' homecoming this afternoon. enders, the quarterback. read option and off and running. how about that 40-yard dash. like a big ten basketball team

wishes it could. right now in the fourth quarter tows leading 39-45 -- to you u.s. open leading it. no chance for a breather this afternoon at home against mcdonough. this kid's shirt says it all. second quarter, eagles down 7-0. travis wood to scott. the eagles soaring, two-point conversion no good. 7-6 gilman. late second quarter, 13-6 gilman now, dickerson from the end zone from six yards out. greyhounds getting in control 20-6. we move to the third quarter, same score. shane cockrell, quarterback on the keeper. off he goes. he's caught down at the 15. the future terp, though, 44 yards. led to a dickerson touchdown. gilman extends the lead from there, wins the game 48-12.

we've got you covered with a look back at the first seven weeks of the baltimore ravens season. join me in a little more than half an hour on wbal-tv 11 news. we have a conversation with ray rice and another surprise in store for you, that's coming up at 7:00. please stay with us.

i've always been lucky. flew 37 bombing missions over germany. made it home every time. i'm lucky to have good friends who are all still around, and we're all lucky to have a friend named ben. ben's protected our medicare and veterans' benefits. and he's helping my 13 grandchildren afford college. he's my friend, ben. i hope he's your friend, too. i'm ben cardin, and i'm honored to approve this message. >> all right, john, give us the latest.

>> the real action will be monday afternoon and monday night, tuesday morning. that's when things get the most intense. how much rain do we get out of this thing? there it is coming up from the south. colorful. anywhere from 4-7 inches of rain in our area and it gets worse up to the north, because it looks like that's where the storm center is going to be coming onshore. here's the forecast. today we made it to almost 70 for the high. look at those temperatures, mostly 50's. even a 48 for a high tuesday as the storm is trying to pull away from the area. the windiest conditions and the heaviest rains will be monday and monday night. >> still got a day to clean out the gutters, storm drains before halloween. >> then the leaves will be redistributed again. >> and tree branches and limbs and everything else. >> all right, john. hold on and stay with us. thanks for joining us. >> "nbc nightly news" is next. we'll he you back here at 11:00. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--